We’re very excited that some new titles have arrived in the library this month – we think you’ll agree they’re an eclectic bunch. Not to judge a book by its cover, but if you like what you see click on an image and you’ll be taken to a review.

This is a splendid read : the history of the Frankfurt School presented as a series of biographies of the leaders (particularly Theodor Adorno) since it came into being in 1922 in response to the failed German revolution. These Jewish/Marxist thinkers were the presiding spirits behind Weimar, attempting to transform the lives of workers through “critical thinking”, without violence, but through modernist culture as exemplified by jazz ,cinema, multiculturalism and the art that Hitler was soon to describe as “entartete” ie. degenerate.

Inevitably they had to flee, most of them to The States, but a new generation exists in Germany at the present day,having involved themselves in the student riots of 1968 though the book does not take us into the current rise of European nationalism. Their goals remain: how to respond to consumerist capitalism and its destructive power over humanity.

This book is pleasure to read- certainly filling in gaps of my knowledge of Germany beyond the horrors of Naziism and Ausschwitz and where it may have to use philosophical jargon, explaining it to the reader without treating her as a half-wit.

We’re excited about this recent addition to our shelves, gifted by our fantastic library president -a signed copy of his latest work.

From one of our leading novelists and historians comes a breathtakingly vivid novel that recalls the three voyages Captain Cook made to the southern hemisphere, culminating in the last, fateful expedition on which he was brutally murdered.

Click here to read an interview with A.N Wilson about the book and the chance discovery which spurred his research and sparked it’s creation.

“Wilson is a great biographer and a fine novelist, and his book is as much a factual account of Forster’s life as a piece of historical fiction. He acknowledges that readers of Forster’s Voyage “will know that I have not invented very much in this novel”. Yet this is one of those astonishing lives that requires little in the way of embellishment. Wilson’s achievement is to impart a restrained imaginative power that makes its extremes seem credible.” –Alfred Hickling, The Guardian

The book is available to borrow now &if any members who read the book would like to contribute their thoughts or comments please do message us at enquiries@morrablibrary.org.uk as we would love to share them here on our blog.

Our most recent display, created by brilliant volunteer Sheila Bradley, is inspired by Russia and consists of books from the library collection -all of which are available to loan. Here are just some of the titles on display, reviews about them, and a couple of photographs taken in the library.

Book covers & library photograph as background

Book covers & library photograph as background

Morrab Library photographs

I almost don’t want to share this, it feels like lost treasure -the photographs were only discovered in Paris in 1987- beautiful &illuminating early colour photography, intimate images of a writer, his family, his friends, alongside expansive landscapes -all capturing the time and place in which he lived. Because of copyright I can’t share the photographs themselves -come, take it out of the display, and look for yourself.

Review excerpt & book cover, Morrab Library photographs in background

Photo of Elena Shvarts

Morrab Library photographs -Nabokov’s Butterflies is edited and annotated by Brian Boyd & Robert Michael Pyle, published by Penguin

Review excerpt

Review excerpt & background image from TV series of the book

Review excerpt

You can find the display in the glass cabinet in the main reception room. We create a new display with a different topic every month or so -it’s always worth a look in case something that was hidden when it was on the shelves catches your eye.